Of all the bad decisions AMD made, selling what became Snapdragon was the absolutely worst one. They could have easily been where nVidia is now, and possibly better, if they hadn't done that.

Yup, one of the worst decisions I can remember in a long time.

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Not only was it sold when smartphones would dominate... they sold it for next to nothing, totally failure. It's like whoever was in charge was on a mission to destroy AMD.

Look to see who had the most to gain, and you'll find the one responsible for the cheap sale of snapdragon.

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Not only was it sold when smartphones would dominate... they sold it for next to nothing, totally failure. It's like whoever was in charge was on a mission to destroy AMD.

You would be surprised by some mistakes made by even the most brilliant CEOs.

"When Tata Motors Ltd. (TTMT) bought Jaguar and Land Rover in 2008 for $2.5 billion from Ford Motor Co. (F), investors greeted the announcement by selling its stock. Those who held on may be sitting on a jackpot. The two British luxury car brands are worth $14 billion, according to the average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News."http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...aluation-soars

Sold a division for $2.5B and it's now worth $14B in just 4 years under a different management team.

Goes to show that you can have great products, but if the division is mismanaged, it might not make a difference. It's just as possible that even if AMD didn't sell the mobile division to Qualcomm, it would have been just as grossly mismanaged and destroyed as their GPU and CPU divisions are today. If anything, AMD's management has shown they can't even be successful when they do design a good product. NV's management and CEO are far superior and the CEO has a clear vision that he executes!

NV's management and CEO are far superior and the CEO has a clear vision that he executes!

Wouldn't like to work for him though but I guess that is the problem with any CEO with 'vision'!

Also, the mean-spirited settlement over their defects is probably something for which JHH was personable responsible for. But then Intel are the only company which really stands over the quality of their products. Still cannot believe that Nvidia got (almost) all the laptop discrete designs this round - I'd never buy a laptop with their chips.

You would be too if you got away with selling a mid-sized Kepler (GK104) for flagship GPU prices and moved the entire product stack down (i.e., what should have been GTX650Ti became GTX660Ti, etc.). At least that's what we heard this entire generation, right? It's no wonder NV is making a killing this generation

Their margins over-all are very similar -- there is just more revenue.

Wouldn't like to work for him though but I guess that is the problem with any CEO with 'vision'!

Also, the mean-spirited settlement over their defects is probably something for which JHH was personable responsible for. But then Intel are the only company which really stands over the quality of their products. Still cannot believe that Nvidia got (almost) all the laptop discrete designs this round - I'd never buy a laptop with their chips.

Why not?

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Silly I know, but I still don't trust their hardware after the defects I witnessed and suffered. Although I am sure Nvidia takes hardware testing very seriously nowadays. Actually, I don't think I would ever buy or recommend a laptop with a dGPU at all - just too much heat: if people want to game on a laptop wait for external Thunderbolt boxes!

The ironic thing is that I'd rate driver quality as Nvidia>AMD>Intel (with very little between Nvidia and AMD but quite a gab between Intel), but hardware quality I would rate the opposite: Intel>AMD>Nvidia.

Which is an obvious sign of horrible management. Same thing happened with Kodak, which I use as an example because the headquarters is local to me and my mom works there. They led the imaging world, and then didn't evolve into digital cameras even though they developed one early on. Now they are trying to climb their way out of bankruptcy, meanwhile the CEO and his executives are getting a nice bonus to the tune of $4.5 million.

Silly I know, but I still don't trust their hardware after the defects I witnessed and suffered. Although I am sure Nvidia takes hardware testing very seriously nowadays. Actually, I don't think I would ever buy or recommend a laptop with a dGPU at all - just too much heat: if people want to game on a laptop wait for external Thunderbolt boxes!

The ironic thing is that I'd rate driver quality as Nvidia>AMD>Intel (with very little between Nvidia and AMD but quite a gab between Intel), but hardware quality I would rate the opposite: Intel>AMD>Nvidia.

I saw plenty of laptops fail that had GeFoce chips, the infamous "Bumpgate". But, it doesn't appear to have hurt Nvidia's image, obviously they're doing fine in the mobile space now.

Wouldn't like to work for him though but I guess that is the problem with any CEO with 'vision'!

Also, the mean-spirited settlement over their defects is probably something for which JHH was personable responsible for. But then Intel are the only company which really stands over the quality of their products. Still cannot believe that Nvidia got (almost) all the laptop discrete designs this round - I'd never buy a laptop with their chips.

I have owned two laptops with discrete Nvidia graphics (9600m GT and GTX560m) I had the 9600m laptop for two years and eventually sold it to my brother in law. I had to replace the thermal paste on the CPU, but otherwise it ran great for me and still works for him. The laptop with the gtx560m is still working great for me and plays games pretty darn well.

Because bumpgate was and still is blown out of proportions (by a certain minority) when looking at the whole picture.

But have fun being mad over a niche-case from 2008....it will do you a lot of good, and not at all make people write you off as...well...one-sided

It may or may not be blown out of proportion, I guess it depends on if you were affected by it or not. Nvidia put aside hundreds of millions of dollars for this, it wasn't a small problem that could just be swept under the rug. I know a number of people who spent money on laptops to have them die.

You seem offended that I brought it up, you always seem to get defensive about Nvidia. If anything I was complementing Nvidia, saying how they had a problem in the past but they are obviously beyond that now and doing great. But anytime any negative is brought up, you seem to be unhappy... nowhere did I say I was mad, nor do I think the tone of my post conveyed any such emotion. Sorry if I hurt your feelings over your bff.

I have owned two laptops with discrete Nvidia graphics (9600m GT and GTX560m) I had the 9600m laptop for two years and eventually sold it to my brother in law. I had to replace the thermal paste on the CPU, but otherwise it ran great for me and still works for him. The laptop with the gtx560m is still working great for me and plays games pretty darn well.

But then 9600M was not affected, was it? That list which mudracker Charlie got from somewhere (Link) back in his Inquirer days is pretty accurate. I was not able to examine the chip markings for every defected NV chip I have come across but the 8400M and nForce 7150 I did examine and the matched Charlie's list.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lonbjerg

Because bumpgate was and still is blown out of proportions (by a certain minority) when looking at the whole picture.

But have fun being mad over a niche-case from 2008....it will do you a lot of good, and not at all make people write you off as...well...one-sided

Well I would not call it such an old niche-case since June 2008 was only the date Nvidia made the changes: obviously some failures had already occurred at that stage but further failures happened later: I'm sure their distribution in time follows a bell type curve. My brother's 8800GT for instance only failed in 2011. And niche is probably a more accurate description of the extend of those who were entitled to the settlement: certainly none of the cases I have personally seen (in the UK) got anything although one guy did try to pursue the retailer they had bought the laptop off.

But Nvidia were very lucky in that most of the affected consumers blame the OEMs for their laptops failing (any desktop cards and desktop chipsets generally failed when they were already old). Of course, HP do make some spectacularly poorly cooled laptops...

Silly I know, but I still don't trust their hardware after the defects I witnessed and suffered. Although I am sure Nvidia takes hardware testing very seriously nowadays. Actually, I don't think I would ever buy or recommend a laptop with a dGPU at all - just too much heat: if people want to game on a laptop wait for external Thunderbolt boxes!

The ironic thing is that I'd rate driver quality as Nvidia>AMD>Intel (with very little between Nvidia and AMD but quite a gab between Intel), but hardware quality I would rate the opposite: Intel>AMD>Nvidia.

I thought it was the solder that failed to withstand the temperature variants and became fractured? What that has to do with Nvidia GPU itself, I don't know.
I still run a Dell Vostro 1500 everyday. Has a 8600M. Maybe a different batch of solder? Maybe I have the only working sample on the planet? Dunno.

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NVIDIA Focus Group Members receive free software and/or hardware from NVIDIA from time to time
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You would be surprised by some mistakes made by even the most brilliant CEOs.

"When Tata Motors Ltd. (TTMT) bought Jaguar and Land Rover in 2008 for $2.5 billion from Ford Motor Co. (F), investors greeted the announcement by selling its stock. Those who held on may be sitting on a jackpot. The two British luxury car brands are worth $14 billion, according to the average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News."http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...aluation-soars

Sold a division for $2.5B and it's now worth $14B in just 4 years under a different management team.

Goes to show that you can have great products, but if the division is mismanaged, it might not make a difference. It's just as possible that even if AMD didn't sell the mobile division to Qualcomm, it would have been just as grossly mismanaged and destroyed as their GPU and CPU divisions are today. If anything, AMD's management has shown they can't even be successful when they do design a good product. NV's management and CEO are far superior and the CEO has a clear vision that he executes!

no wonder nvidia didn't want merger where AMD CEO gets to be boss for both divisions.
Unfortunately, AMD has no long-term vision for CPU business.

I have to wonder though...with Tegra growing so fast, the PC market shrinking and HPC going strong - in the not so foreseeable future, will Nvidia abandon graphics altogether? Let's say 5-10 years from now?

Give it a rest. Bumpgate was not just a minor thing, NVDA paid hundreds of millions of dollars to settle bumpgate litigation. And that was just a portion of the potential lawsuits that could have occurred. People were rightfully upset that NVDA tried to deflect and dodge responsibility for so long; in fact, I don't think they ever fessed up.

However, that stuff happened a while ago and you would hope that NVDA would have learned a lesson or two and that it would be safe to buy their products again.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by BoFox

We had to suffer polygonal boobs for a decade because of selfish corporate reasons.

I actually tend to think that having JHH at the helm of AMD would have resulted in a completely different AMD to what it is now. nVIDIA and its vision/projects would have complemented AMD so much better along with improved marketing of its tech/features/products.

Just on the top of my head:
-nVIDIA's nforce brand for AMD systems having a strong image (much much better than nvidia's intel counterparts) making their "platforms" stand toe to toe with intels atleast on the marketing side of things.
-nVIDIA's ambition into the mobile space would have changed focus for AMD and i.e. not sell off its mobile division to Qualcomm.
-The emergence of HPC market meant that the opterons complement very well with Tesla based products. (AMD sort of does well in server side of things). Not only that but investments into CUDA/OpenCL makes AMD a very strong player here.
-Professional/workstation products e.g. quadros also give AMD a good boost and further builds up its image in the industrial/professional market.
-The CPU/GPU combinations matches well (given all scenarios) giving customers more flexible options in terms of price (bundling).
-Much stronger image/brand recognition!

Some food for thought.. I mean both even share the same colour scheme ala green!

Think about it. You are an investor with billions to spend. First buy AMD. Then pump some money into it. Then have AMD buy nvidia (and hence not lose x86 as the other way around) and then profit!!! (or not...)